Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, the founders of YouTube, have unveiled MixBit, an
app which allows users to edit and share videos.

The application is similar to Instagram and Twitter’s Vine, but with MixBit the emphasis is on collaboration and editing clips together.

Users can upload up to around an hour of 16-second clips edited together, meaning the finished product could be far longer that possible on Vine or Instagram.

Hurley and Chen, who co-created YouTube in 2005 and sold it to Google for $1.65 billion (£1.06 billion) the following year, said they hoped the site would inspire people to “make great videos.”

In a statement on MixBit.com, the pair said: “The MixBit website is a community of creators. We believe everyone has something interesting to say.

“We give people fun, intuitive tools to help them tell stories together. We think video should be a living, breathing entity and that creativity is a collaborative process. More than simply capturing brief moments in time, we help people bring stories to life.”

The app is currently only available on iOS, but an Android version is set to be released in the coming weeks.

Examples of videos on the site include “4 ways to remove a beard”, with a hirsute contributor showing us how it is done in one minute, 13 seconds and 14 clips edited together.

Another popular edit so far has been the minute-long “FREE HUGS”, where a group of Americans take to the streets to hand out exactly those.

The site also allows users to take content created by others and develop it into new videos.

All videos are currently posted anonymously – unlike YouTube, where those uploading clips are able to develop their own channels or brands – but there are plans to allow user names and comments in the future.